Video surveillance is prevalent in society. Whether to protect inventory, property or people, society generally accepts video surveillance as a way to provide security. However, as video surveillance systems become more sophisticated so too do the efforts of wrongdoers who seek to circumvent and/or neutralize these systems. The result is a never ending game of cat and mouse where surveillance system developers add features and functions, which wrongdoers then try to circumvent and/or defeat.
Common methods wrongdoers use to avoid detection in a monitored area is to cover, re-orient or blind the camera through the use of extreme light or otherwise change the scene a security system camera is monitoring. For example, a wrongdoer may move the camera to point it away from the monitored area or even place an image of a “fake” scene in front of the camera lens. If monitoring personnel, e.g., a security guard, is monitoring many cameras, the personnel may not notice the change in scenes and therefore not be alerted that suspicious activity is occurring. While methods are known that address these problems, such methods result in significant false positives and potentially slow response times. For example, a false alarm may be generated if an outdoor camera scene changes due to blowing leaves, car headlights, etc., even though no actual tampering has occurred. False positives are extremely counter-productive and the resulting alarms will likely be ignored by the monitoring personnel. It is therefore desirable to have a method and system that reliably informs the security guard or other monitoring personnel if an alarm event is happening in a manner that reduces, if not eliminates, false positives.